NOTES ANB OUERIES: 
[Under this Department Heading queries relative to Angling, Ichthyology and Fish Culture 
will be answered. | 
Ves, «We Got a Bite.’ 
‘“Did you get an offer,” said an old fisher- 
man to us one day, as our boat touched the 
shore of Lake La Boeffe, near Erie, Pa., on 
our return from a morning’s fishing. We 
looked into his gnarled old face with the sim- 
plicity of ignorance plainly shown in our own, 
and he repeated the words with a touch of 
contempt in his voice, at our want of knowl- 
edge of the local slang in use on this particu- 
lar water. Just then, our boatman whispered 
to us: 
‘He means, did you get a bite.”’ 
The Tarpon * Craze.” 
The fisherman, who has failed to visit the 
coasts of Florida during the tarpon season, 
cannot understand or realize ‘‘ the craze "’ ex- 
isting among angling tourists of that section. 
“lo catch a tarpon’’ is the aim and fixed 
resolve, even unto desperation, of every angler 
who essays a rod in those waters. Days, and 
even weeks, often pass without getting ‘‘a 
draw,” but silently and resolutely many men 
will sit under a broiling sun in an open boat 
and wait for the thrill that comes not to all. 
This constant strain of expectation, of hope 
deferred, the cramped position in the boat, 
and, now and then, the sight of ‘‘a draw and 
capture” by a neighboring angler, with the 
reaction from a jubilant lookout during the 
morning’s row to the tarpon grounds to the 
dead weight of unfulfillment pressing upon 
him in the tedious evening pull back to the 
hotel; all these factors of worry and dis- 
content operating upon a man’s brain and 
body, day after day, and often for weeks, so 
affect his temperament that he becomes a 
changed man. 
I.know of one striking instance, wherein so 
great a revolution took place in the mental 
status of an unsuccessful three weeks’ tarpon 
fisherman, that he seemed to get outside of 
himself. When I first met him in Florida, a 
more genial, jovial fellow never*existed. He 
was cheery all over. Two days before he left 
the scene of his unlucky experience with the 
tarpon, the change came upon him. His 
manner was bluff in the extreme and at times 
insulting, and if the word ‘‘ tarpon”’ was men- 
tioned in his presence, he would either turn 
upon his heel or use offensive words to the un- 
lucky speaker. Companionship with him was 
impossible with any degree of comfort; he be- 
came coarse at the table, rude to the servants; 
in fact, an unbearable nuisance; and, as such, 
was left severely alone. The day he started 
homeward bound was one of relief. The 
above is not an exaggerated or isolated case, 
as I have been told of many similar in- 
stances occurring among unsuccessful tarpon 
fishers. 
Now look at this tarpon depravity from 
another standpoint, that of the successful an- 
gler, who has killed his first silver king. So 
soon as the captor and captive reach the ho- 
tel, everybody swarms around them with con- 
gratulations and praise until the lucky angler 
s made to feel, particularly by the non-fishing 
crowd, that he is the ‘‘ Captain of the Ranch;” 
that he knows it all. Perhaps it was his first 
tarpon; perhaps his guide did the killing, but 
he is nevertheless ‘‘ high hook” and high au- 
thority for the time being, and lays down with 
confidence and assured knowledge his iron- 
clad rules for handling and killing the great 
‘‘savanilla,”» by which name he only knows. 
his quarry—‘‘silver king” and ‘‘ tarpon” be- 
ing too common for his nomenclature. And 
from the confidence begot of killing his first 
tarpon, from the day of its capture, he be- 
comes the oracle of all knowledge of handling 
and boating every species of fish that take 
the line in Florida waters. 
Such individuals are met with almost daily 
during the season, particularly at points other 
than Fort Myers, where, in April or later, the 
taking of tarpon is too frequent an occurrence. 
